Described below is a method for testing electrical components in a mains supply, in particular a mains supply for a building, and to a corresponding test unit and a corresponding electrical component for use in such a method.
Various methods are known from the related art for suitable identification of technical products in order to distinguish these products from retrofitted or counterfeited products. For example what are known as RFID tags can be used, with which information about a technical product, especially an electronic product code, can be read out wirelessly. The inclusion of semiconductor chips in technical devices is also known, which can carry out cryptographic operations in order to reliably identify an original product in this way. Putting the security features on technical products or packages by printing a code or hidden pictures on them is also known. The hidden pictures can be made visible in such cases only by a special decoder lens.
In mains supply networks it is especially important for reasons of safety for the electrical components included in the networks to satisfy particular safety requirements, in order to avoid malfunctions in this way, which can lead to damage to electrical loads in the supply network or under some circumstance also present a danger for human users or the supply network. Specific malfunctions of electrical components in a mains supply can if necessary be detected directly via the detection of currents or voltages occurring in the supply network. However a method by which individual electrical components in a mains supply can be tested in a simple manner is not known.